I Can't Wait For This Reunion

Well my parents left early Saturday morning to pick up Alemu and Israel. We are so excited to have them back home in 2 weeks!!! According to Emily the boys were shy at first but warmed up to Mom and Dad very quickly. The most excruciating part of the wait was once the plane had landed and they had to go through customs. Emily said at that point Almeu was chanting "1, 2, 3, Mom and Dad" over and over again hoping they would finally appear...so cute!

Brothers #4 and #5

Our trip to Ethiopia will be hands down one of the most amazing experiences of our life. It would be hard to beat if we had just been meeting Elias but we also got to be our two newest brothers!!! My Mom was supposed to blog about them because she got travel dates as we were flying but she didn't so... sorry to have kept you all waiting. Without further ado I give you:

Alemu - age 10 (ish)

Israel - age 8 (ish)

We got to meet Almeu and Israel the morning of Feb 1st and we met Elias later that afternoon. Feb 1st will forever be a very special day for Brian and I. I think it was a good thing that we met the older boys first and were able to give them a little special attention before we were more consumed with a baby.

Alemu and Israel are truly wonderful boys. They are loving, affectionate and nurturing. They are well behaved and sweet tempered. They are curious and excited. Although I haven't been a mom long, I have learned that it is very easy to love people who love your child. I love Israel and Alemu all their own but seeing how much they love and dote over Elias deepened that love to a whole other level.Changing their nephew's diaper

Feeding their nephew

The first time to the movies!

A Current Update

So I thought I would start current before I do a blast from the past and give our account of our time in Ethiopia. Elias and Daddy are both sleeping. Brian and I are more or less taking turns with which night we get up with Elias and last night was Daddy's turn. I had to get up about 3:15am to rock the babe to sleep as he and Brian were up watching sports center and all he wanted to do with Dad was play. They certainly have fun playing together! Besides that it was Brian's duty so I am feeling well rested and ready to blog :) It also helps that my mom stopped by with a latte this morning on her way to work. It's amazing how good a latte tastes after a week and then some!Ok so my plan didn't work. The baby's should be 2 hour nap only lasted an hour but that's how things roll around here. My Mom asked today when he naps. It's hard to say because each day is different. Hopefully someday we will have a schedule. He takes somewhere between 2 and 3 naps a day and they last anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 and 1/2 hours.

When we got the update about Elias pre-travel we found out he ate 2-3 oz. every 2 hours. He now eats 6 oz. every 3-4 hours. It was a really easy transition. We started right away with 4 ozs. and knew after a couple days that wasn't enough because he was angry each time he finished. He always lets us know when he has had enough which is really nice too. We go to the doctor tomorrow and I will talk to him about getting this chunky monkey on some solids. His night time routine is a lot more structured than naps. He falls asleep between 6:15 and 6:30pm. He always wakes at 2:30am for a bottle and diaper change. Yes...that is a full 8 hours!!!! Since we have been home he has been waking up at 11:30pm for a bottle but in Ethiopia he would go straight from 6:30-2:30. He is up again at 5:30am and is awake for good. It's early but when he goes to sleep later he still wakes at 5:30 on the dot. I really have no complaints when I have a baby who is in bed more or less for 11 hours each night! I think this lends to the fact that overall I am really not as wiped as I was expecting. We have now been home a day and a half and things are great.

Elias is so much FUN!! He loves to laugh and play. He has the best back of the throat forced laugh. I will get some video footage soon. Also, this kid LOVES the bath. I think he will be a huge fan of Mimi and Papi's pool. We will be posting video of his bath soon too. He loves to kick his legs and splash everywhere! It is so funny. He has strong legs too because he will kick for as long as his bath lasts without tiring.
He can be a little fussy. It could be the teething or the fact that he is still sick to some extent...otherwise, Brian has it all figured out. As he put it, Elias is happy when a) his needs are met (i.e. he is full and not tired) and b) when he is being entertained. This kiddo always wants to be entertained. If he is not the center of attention he lets you know. Now if he was baby #2 that might be kind of annoying and unrealistic but so far it really hasn't been bad having a basically high maintenance baby. We love him being the center of attention and with 2 of us and 1 of him it isn't that difficult to always have someone playing with him. I completely understand though why Almaz was so happy to find out he was baby #1 for us.

*Please forgive the really cheesy Paint editing but I didn't want my blog to get blocked due to nudity.*

Home At Last

Well we left Addis Ababa 50 hours ago and we are finally home!! Elias and Brian are both sleeping already. The exhaustion comes and goes in waves and right now I am pretty wide awake. What I have learned over the last week is I need to sleep when the baby does so I'm off to bed anyway. I will try to start writing about our trip and downloading pictures tomorrow. For all you waiting moms, I saw most [as in not all :( ] of your children. I will try to e-mail you all tomorrow with updates. Until then...

Slight Delay

Just wanted to give everyone an update. Autumn & Brian 's plane was delayed leaving Ethiopia which made them miss their connection in London. They are overnighting in London and will be home tomorrow instead of tonight. :(

100% Improvement!!!

Since we wrote last a lot has changed. Elias has improved 100% each day and night. The antibiotics are definitely kicking in and we are starting to see his real personality. He is all smiles and giggles especially right after he wakes.. He has gone from waking up 5 times a night to only twice. The only time he fusses is when he is sleepy. He fights going to sleep but Almaz warned us about that. Brian has been able to put him to sleep once and that was it. Other than that he screams his head off until I come and hold him.. He will usually fall asleep in my arms within 5 minutes.. When I have him in the moby wrap it is more like 2 minutes. Although I feel bad for Brian, I have to admit it is nice that he finds a special comfort in me. Even when we have gone back to HH the special mothers who soothed him the first day when he was scared of us and not feeling well can no longer comfort him. He will fuss around them and almost immediately when they give him back he is quiet. There is one special mother who is especially attached to him. She has cried every time we have gone to HH. She takes him within 2 minutes of us walking through the gate.. She is the only one he doesn’t fuss with.

Today we had the meeting with the birthmother. She was 45 minutes late because of transportation and we were worried she wasn’t going to come. When she did it was hard. I will save the details for Elias but we know that she loves him very much and did what she thought was best. We all spent the ½ meeting crying (even Almaz as she translated).

Elias is an absolute joy. He LOVES to play with daddy. He gets bored easy a.k.a. high maintenance. He loves to look out the window, ride in the car, or go for a walk. He smiles and laughs easily and will play with anyone and let anyone hold him as long as he isn’t tired. If he is tired then it is Mommy only. Although I am exhausted having to rock him to sleep every time he needs to nap or go back to bed I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

We can’t wait for all of you to meet him. He is wonderful and I am sure you are all going to be just as in love as we are.

Love,
Autumn (and Brian)

We Have Elias!!!

We have Elias!!! We have been hanging out with Alemu , Israel and Emily all day. Our embassy appointment got rescheduled to tomorrow (Tues) because the consulate just didn’t show up. All we had planned today was the embassy meeting and we didn’t find out in enough time to do what was on the schedule for tomorrow (shopping and lunch). So we have just been hanging around the hotel and then we all went to HH to visit Elias’ special mothers (nannies) and see his bed. Right now Brian, Emily, Alemu , Israel and Elias are all on our huge bed watching t.v. Alemu is feeding the baby. Both of the boys are so good with him and love to sit next to him and touch him. They always look at me when he starts crying (which is OFTEN) with an expression like “what are you going to do? Hurry up and do something.”

Our first meeting did not go as we had hoped – or I guess I should say as we expected. I definitely had expectations. Everyone says Elias is so happy and content and just loves to be held and cuddled. Almaz told us via e-mail that we should have no problem picking him up. In the afternoon we did our paperwork before going over to HH. Almaz said she was so glad Elias was our first child because he needs a lot of attention. She also said she had no reservations about him coming right back to the hotel with us. We walked over to HH. It was an emotional short walk. We first took pictures and video for the other two families since both of them were picking up older sibling sets and the kids were so excited to see their parents. We were all teary-eyed watching those meetings. Almaz then took us up stairs. We hear this baby crying and walk up the stairs and there in the hallway is Elias screaming his head off. The nanny said it was his bath time but she knew we were coming so she put him in a Johnny jump up and he hated it. So we see him but Almaz takes him and says she wants to calm him down first. We just stood there watching him scream and her try to calm him. We went downstairs and the crying continued. She tried to have 3 different special mothers soothe him and none of them could. She of course said he has never been like this J. We hung in there but it was tough. I think I remember holding him briefly but he was still screaming and she took him away.

The uncontrollable crying went on for an hour and a half. In this time she had me try EVERYTHING. We bathed him, changed him, tried to feed him, walked him, bounced him around, tried a pacifier, put him in a bouncy seat, etc. Finally one of his special mothers was able to get him to take a nap.. I am sure he was exhausted after such a long time of crying so hard. The poor baby was choking and coughing. He just seemed so upset. At one point Almaz looked at me and said, “it sure is strange how they know something is changing because he has been off all day.”

I carried the sleeping Elias downstairs in his bouncy seat. Almaz had us sit there and wait for him to wake up so we were the ones he saw when he woke. In the meantime we played and held other babies in the room. Elias looked so peaceful – not at all the baby we met. When he woke up he did so smiling. He giggled and played with us. However, it didn’t last. We ended up trying to put him in the moby wrap. He really liked that. He still didn’t go more than 15 minutes without crying but he wasn’t inconsolable anymore. Everyone else left unbeknownst to us while we were inside with Elias. It was kind of nice because it gave us some one on one time to talk to Almaz about him. We were sitting around talking and I still had him in the moby wrap. She said, “I am so glad to see how you are handling this. You are calm and not acting scared. Many experienced parents would have been so overwhelmed they would have been crying too. You guys are doing great and Besu definitely has the right parents.” Although I hadn’t cried there certainly were moments amidst the screaming where it took everything I had to hold back. (Right now he is screaming. Poor guy is not doing well.)

He is obviously teething. Drooling everywhere, biting on everything. The second best thing we brought is the discovery toys teether. He loves it! We have the regular teething ring frozen (yes we have a fridge and freezer) and he won’t have anything to do with it. The red one that we picked up from Mom G just days before we left has been a life saver. In addition to getting his first tooth we found out last night he has dual ear infections. Shawn (one of the other moms here) is a doctor. She checked out his ears for me and gave us the news. Now I am not trying to make fun of my child but he has the MOST lopsided head you will ever see. It looks like a giant egg sitting diagonally on his neck. The reason I tell you this is because Shawn said with his head shape he will be more prone to ear infections than most. He also has a cough and a nose that is constantly running (but at least it’s clear). This could be a separate cold or an effect of the ear infections. Shawn gave us an antibiotic that she thinks will work better than the one we brought.

We are very in love. Despte the screaming he felt like ours the second we saw him. He is wonderful!